Jade was slipping.
Her breath was coming faster now, ragged and shallow, her mana fraying like threadbare cloth. The nose-high arrogance in her stance had collapsed. Her skeleton beasts were nothing but ash at Vyan's feet. The weak vines cracked and withered in the heat of his flames. She had nowhere left to run.
Just a few more hits.
Vyan advanced, fire trailing in his wake.
He didn't want her dead. No. That would be too merciful. He wanted her ruined. Crushed. Stripped of every ounce of pride she wore like armor.
She had to be captured. Paraded in chains through the city. Be stoned at. Watched by the masses as the guillotine fell—just like his parents had been. And that would be justice. At least for him.
It would soothe the clawing pain in his chest that never quite fully disappeared. Because how could he let the embers of his revenge die? The ache always ignited whenever he passed by the pictures of his once-happy family in the hallway.
